Once upon a time, Michael Vick and Ralph Sampson were Johnny Manziel

See Michael Vick's career in the NFL. The Warwick High grad led Virginia Tech to the national championship game in 1999 and was the No. 1 draft pick of the Atlanta Falcons. In 2015, he signed with the Pittsburgh Steelers.

As the Johnny Manziel mini-series descends into the absurd — ESPN has deputized MIT's best and brightest to calculate the latest autograph tally — two names spring to mind: Ralph Sampson and Michael Vick.

By today's standards, they had it easy. They weren't tempted by Twitter, recorded by cell phones or berated by bloggers.

But in their time, the early 1980s for Sampson, nearly two decades later for Vick, they were college sports royalty.

Sampson was a three-time national player of the year at Virginia, a 7-foot-4 basketball prodigy who defied position labeling and, often, description. Vick was a freshman phenom at Virginia Tech, a quarterback with revolutionary speed who led the Hokies to an undefeated regular season and a spot in the national title game.

They were Johnny Manziels.

But how would they have coped in 2013? Like Manziel, the Heisman Trophy quarterback from Texas A&M, would they have traded on their celebrity, partnered with autograph brokers and risked their college eligibility? Would they have furthered a national debate on the wisdom, morality and legality of compensating the few college athletes who generate so much revenue for their schools?

This borders on certain: Unlike Manziel, they would not have flaunted their fame at a rival school fraternity party.

Sampson and Vick, you see, were, and remain, uncomfortable in the public eye. Naturally shy, and perhaps insecure, they hail from modest backgrounds rather than Manziel oil money. They appreciated their college coaches and administrators sheltering them from the media and fan onslaught that even then accompanied acclaim.

His protests to the contrary notwithstanding, Manziel seems to relish the fishbowl. Sit front row at the NBA playoffs, attend the ESPYs and party at the University of Texas.

Sure, Manziel professed his disdain for autograph hounds to Sports Illustrated's Andy Staples. Who wouldn't? While many are children, and even adults, with pure and harmless intent, many others are creepy, terminal adolescents, or blatant capitalists.

Which brings us to the question(s) on which Manziel's future, Texas A&M's season and, at the risk of hyperbole, the financial underpinnings of major college sports hinge.

Did Manziel get paid? More to the point, should he get paid?

Props to ESPN's Jay Bilas and Twitter for exposing the NCAA stooges' online sales of jerseys, but let's tap the brakes before portraying college athletes, even the elite, as abused. Let's pause before nuking current rules and creating a free market.

Some call this trite and delusional, but there is remarkable value in the scholarships athletes receive. No matter their intellect or academic aims, whether they fancy Chaucer or the Berenstain Bears, the mere exposure to ideas and interaction with classmates nourish the soul.

The room, board and amenities aren't bad — Google Oregon's new football support complex for over-the-top confirmation — and the stage to audition for professional teams is invaluable.

But there's no denying the inherent unfairness of video game manufacturers cashing in on athletes' likenesses. There's no denying that television networks pay billions for the rights to televise major college football and basketball.

Something's got to give.

"I think it's going to come to pass that somehow we'll go back to laundry money or something, like we used to have way back when," said Tom O'Brien, Virginia's associate head football coach and a former big whistle at Boston College and North Carolina State. "I can understand both sides of the argument, but I think ... kids are going to have to get a little something in their pocket.

"A lot of these kids don't have two nickels to rub together, and it would certainly help them and maybe stop the temptation that some kids may have if they are taking something … on the side."

A stipend for all athletes — roll back excessive coaches' salaries to finance, if necessary — seems the most measured approach. Perhaps, in rare cases such as Manziel's, modest compensation deferred until college career's end.

But the open market — hire an agent and sell yourself to the highest-bidding school, autograph broker and apparel manufacturer — will not work in college sports. Rules, believe it or not, are necessary and can be effective.

As the insightful John Infante, a former NCAA compliance officer at Division I schools, blogged recently, allowing teenage athletes to dive unsupported into a marketplace replete with sharks would be beyond negligent.

"Just because professionalization or commercialization is a slippery slope does not mean we cannot reshape the hillside to slow down or stop the descent," Infante wrote. "There is a vast and varied middle ground between complete professionalization and rigid amateurism. The only question now is whether college athletics will start to carefully make its way down that slope, or get shoved and hope it stops rolling before flying off a cliff."

David Teel can be reached at 757-247-4636 or by email at dteel@dailypress.com. For more from Teel, read his blog at dailypress.com/ teeltime and follow him at twitter.com/DavidTeelatDP